Mode Muntu

La Cité Miroir presents an unprecedented retrospective on the Congolese painter Mode Muntu (1940-1985). The curator of the S.M.A.K. (Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art) in Ghent described him as the painter of the 21st century. Mode Muntu remains little-known among the general public, however...

Born in 1940 in Lubumbashi, the oldest of 14 siblings, Mode Muntu joined his city’s Academy of Fine Arts at the age of just 14. His universal and intuitive plastic language places him in a universal movement of contemporary artists, such as A.R. Penck and Keith Haring, who use the outline as a universal means of expression. This artist’s instinctive painting has carved itself a maverick groove in the tumults of History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.